Articles – Page 36

Want Tailormade Screamingly-High-Performance RISC-V64 IP?

July 20, 2023

Soooo… you’ve decided you’re going to create a system-on-chip (SoC) device of such awesomeness that it will leave your competitors gnashing their teeth and rending their garb. You’ve also decided to base this on a RISC-V processor. What you want is the biggest, baddest RISC-V processor going. Furthermore, you want this processor to be customized to allow you to take full advantage of your own “secret sauce” IP. Who ya gonna call?

I’ll give you a clue, which is that the Read More → "Want Tailormade Screamingly-High-Performance RISC-V64 IP?"

Processors for Wearable Medical Devices Help to Fight Type 1 Diabetes

by Steven Leibson

July 17, 2023

My cat developed diabetes this year. She’s 16 years old and has become lethargic, even more than is normal for an old cat. The vet diagnosed diabetes and I now need to give her an insulin shot twice a day, right after I feed her. So far, her diabetes has been relatively easy to manage. Initially, I took her to the vet every two weeks to check her glucose levels, and we quickly converged on a regimen. Each trip proved traumatic for the cat, who didn’t understand what was happening. Before starting on insulin, she’d … Read More → "Processors for Wearable Medical Devices Help to Fight Type 1 Diabetes"

A Tempting Taste of the AI-Powered World to Come

by Max Maxfield

July 13, 2023

Recently, I talked to two young artificial intelligence (AI) start-up companies. Although these companies are tackling completely different problems, they both present a tempting taste of the AI-powered world that is racing towards us like a runaway juggernaut.

As an aside, it just struck me how much AI is already permeating our lives in general and my life in particular. As we discussed in a previous column, I currently … Read More → "A Tempting Taste of the AI-Powered World to Come"

Indoor Voice or XCORE-VOICE?

by Max Maxfield

July 11, 2023

I remember as a kid being constantly admonished by my mother to “Remember to use your indoor voice.” I also remember feeling quite aggrieved because whatever news I wished to impart was of great import (obviously, otherwise I wouldn’t have wanted to divulge it in the first place), and—being so important—it deserved to be imparted at high volume to a wide audience.

Unfortunately, this was one of many topics on which my mother and I didn’t see eye-to-eye, which wasn’t surprising because, in those days of yore, she … Read More → "Indoor Voice or XCORE-VOICE?"

Book Review: “Silicon Planet” describes the hands-on, hard-knocks education of a processor architect

by Steven Leibson

July 10, 2023

If you want the world to celebrate and remember your life’s accomplishments, the best way to achieve that goal is to write an autobiographical book about your life. If you want to make sure that book is printed and distributed, then publish it yourself. That’s exactly what processor architect extraordinaire Pat Hays has done. He wrote and recently self-published “Silicon Planet: My Life in Computer Chips,” now available on Amazon. You may not have heard of Hays, but you … Read More → "Book Review: “Silicon Planet” describes the hands-on, hard-knocks education of a processor architect"

Grammar for Professionals, e.g. vs. i.e. All Becomes Clear

by Max Maxfield

July 6, 2023

As I’ve mentioned in previous columns, one of my backburner hobby projects is writing a book called “Wroting Inglish: The Essential Guide to Writing English for Anyone Who Doesn’t Want to be Thought a Dingbat.”

When I commenced work on this project, the audience I had in mind was primarily my peeps (engineers). More recently, however, since I’ve found myself correcting communications from members of multiple occupations, including lawyers, I’ve decided to target professionals in general.

Now, you might argue … Read More → "Grammar for Professionals, e.g. vs. i.e. All Becomes Clear"

With 18.5 million logic cells, AMD’s Versal VP1902 Premium Adaptive SoC becomes “World’s Largest FPGA”

by Steven Leibson

July 5, 2023

In the relatively narrow world of FPGA-based prototyping and emulation, bigger FPGAs are always better. Always. With its 18.5 million logic cells, AMD’s Versal VP1902 Premium Adaptive SoC has just taken the “World’s Largest FPGA” title by more than doubling the capacity of AMD’s previous extra-large offering, the Virtex UltraScale+ VU19P FPGA with 8.5 million logic cells. The VP1902 SoC is also many millions of logic cells larger than any competitive programmable-logic device. Samples of the VP1902 SoC are scheduled to be available in Q3 of this year, and volume manufacturing is scheduled for the … Read More → "With 18.5 million logic cells, AMD’s Versal VP1902 Premium Adaptive SoC becomes “World’s Largest FPGA”"

Steve Sanghi’s new “Up And To The Right” book chronicles Microchip’s journey from nearly bankrupt to Top-20 semiconductor maker

by Steven Leibson

July 3, 2023

Although he did not know it at the time, when Steve Sanghi left Wafer Scale Integration (WSI) to join Microchip in April 1990, he had jumped from the frying pan directly into the fire. Nine months prior, Sanghi had looked at Microchip’s status in the hopes of justifying a merger between ailing WSI and Microchip. At that point, Microchip had $10 million remaining from a Series A funding round and looked to be heading up. However, the merger didn’t happen, and WSI continued to spiral downward. After WSI’s CEO, VP of technology, VP of sales, and … Read More → "Steve Sanghi’s new “Up And To The Right” book chronicles Microchip’s journey from nearly bankrupt to Top-20 semiconductor maker"

Want a Database Tailormade for Edge Computing?

by Max Maxfield

June 29, 2023

We are constantly being informed about computationally intensive tasks moving out to the edge, like artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML), for example. Sad to relate, one supporting capability required by many of these applications that doesn’t receive as much attention and discussion as it should is the topic of databases. Specifically, databases tailormade for deployment on the edge in microprocessor units (MPUs), microcontroller units (MCUs), electronic control units (ECUs), and so forth. Fortunately, I have you covered…

As I’ve mentioned on occasion, I’m very lucky because—in addition … Read More → "Want a Database Tailormade for Edge Computing?"

Axiado Develops Swiss Army Knife for Platform Security

by Steven Leibson

June 28, 2023

How much system security is too much? By the way, that’s a rhetorical question. No matter how much security you put into a system’s design, if the protected data is valuable enough or if bad actors just think the data’s valuable enough, they will try to steal it, corrupt it, or counterfeit it. Processor vendors spend an increasing amount of time and devote a growing number of design resources to develop new security schemes for their processors.

For example, AMD offers a variety of security features in its various Ryzen … Read More → "Axiado Develops Swiss Army Knife for Platform Security"